Wednesday, 28 October 2015

I complain a lot about the difficulty of finding vintage clothes in Stavanger. There isn't really a lot of options, and to be honest, I have pretty much given up. I find my style going more and more towards simple, less girly looks these days , so I guess I haven't bothered looking that hard lately anyway. But then i found this little treasure, at Fretex! Fretex is the equivalent of the Salvation Army shops we have in Sweden, Myrornas, and it's pretty hard to find anything really old there, it's mostly just second hand stuff from chains. But as I was browsing around in there two weeks back I saw the fabric of this dress peeking out between stripes and plaid and fell head over heals. Lucky me, it was even in my size, a perfect fit! I first guessed it was a 50's dress because of the hand painted flowers, but after reading this blog post over at Elsa's blog, I'm leaning more towards early 60's, based on color scheme and the shape of the skirt.

I felt a bit First Lady-like in this dress, which is a bit humorous if you know my boyfriends last name... I even think my hair even wanted to play along for a change, yay! The photos turned put a bit blurry and red due to, you know, the indoor light situation after 4 in this part of the world... And my lack of energy to work in them. But anyway.

When we had visitors last weekend we cleaned the house. As you do. Or as most people do, no judging. I snapped a few iphone-pictures of the bedroom to create an illusion that this is how tidy it always looks. And to remind me how tidy it can look, I guess...

We bought a new bedspread when we were in Portugal earlier this fall. Bedspreads are my nemesis(es?): I have bought a bunch of them over the past few years but have never been fully happy. This one makes me happy, though! It doesn't cover the whole bed, but I don't think that matters so much, I rather have this look than too much overhang. The one I had before touch the floor in all sides and that created a really messy feeling even on those rare occasions when I actually make the bed.

I got that stuffed disillusioned guy as a gift from my dad. A couple of years ago. On Monday mornings it functions as my mirror.

I'm sure happy little cat-claws will be a challenge for this striped little darling, but oh well, so far no major damages! *crossing fingers*

I removed the Facebook app from my phone this week. And downloaded a couple of meditation apps instead. Turns out they sucked and the whole point was to spend less time on my phone anyway, so they got deleted. Thing is I feel just a teeny bit to tied to my phone. I rely on it for pretty much everything and my first reflex when I am a bit bored, or just need a moments distraction is to pick it up. I know most people are like this these days and it's fine, I just feel like the phone is sucking energy out that I could have spent on more creative stuff, like painting or whatever.

I am not one of those who believe our surfing-habits decreases the amount of time we spend being social, I am honestly more social now then I've been for years and that has in many ways to do with how low the threshold is when it comes to contacting people via Messenger. But anyway. I want to cut back, just a bit. I'll let you know how that turns out.

I looooove retro hairstyles. I wish I could walk around every single day looking like Ava Gardner or Rita Hayworth. Unfortunately I'm not very skilled when it comes to hair. But before going out on Friday night I had a go at some kind of victory rolls, using pin curls as a way of prepping my hair for the do.

Step 1. pin curls in damp hair with some setting fluid.

Step 2. loosening the cursl with fingers.

Step 3. shaping hair into rolls and fastening with hair pins.

This is the result, not half bad if I may say so myself! And I may.

If buying glasses wasn't so horrendously expensive I would get myself a pair of retro ones to match this look. My hipster-wannabe-aviator specs are looking just a bit out of place here.

Thursday, 22 October 2015

I'm in my fourth week of back pain now! It's getting so bad I haven't done any roller derby practice in three weeks, and I'm getting really grumpy by now. The muscles in my lower back feel like they are 10 cm too short. Getting up from bed in the morning is hard, I have to sit or lie down to put on socks and shoes and it's difficult to concentrate at work. I have to stand up at my desk because sitting down is a pain. This all generally sucks. Luckily I have very understanding coworkers and my clients don't mind if I have to stand up for a bit in a meeting. Plus we have a massage chair at work. Yay! And tomorrow I'm going to the chiropractor! Yay again!

Friday, 16 October 2015

I don't even remember how many times I've been on a plane this year. On average two take-offs and landings a month, maybe? In an environmental point of view this is rather horrible, and something I should try to minimize in the future. But. There's another aspect here as well. Six years ago I wouldn't set my foot on a plane. The thought of spending time in an aircraft in the air made my hands sweaty, and I felt bad just looking at planes in the air from the ground. It had been like that for five years, even though I flew quite frequently as I grew up, but I got more and more scared during my teenage years and in my early twenties it got worse until I completely stopped flying when I was 24. But I got over that. It took time, but I did and I'm proud of it. And I don't think it would have happen if I hadn't made all of these short flights within Scandinavia over the past few years. Slowly relaxing. At first I used to go up to the air-hosts/hostesses the first thing after we had reached cruising height to hang out and let them calm me down a bit, but after a while I didn't have to. Now I'm even able to sleep on planes!

Wednesday, 14 October 2015

So, it was time for a hair update again. This time I continued on my ongoing plan, growing my bangs out and going even blonder. This was my inspiration this time and the pic I showed the hairdresser:

And here's a few other ones I've been looking at:

And this is me before, not really loving the yellowish blonde and my roots are showing. Also looking kind of shapeless.

And this is me, during. In this moment brain is going "ohmygodohmygodohmygod" and I'm not at all sure of this decision. It just looked so... white! I was thinking I was going to look like Spike in BtVS... and I kind of did, at this stage. I also look like someone have trapped me in a garbage bag, but that's beside the point.

But it ended up looking great! It is probably going to be a pain to keep up, but I'm thoroughly glad I went through with it.

Tuesday, 13 October 2015

I've always loved sports. Most sports, actually. I like the feeling you get from trying something new, even if I only end up doing it once, but I also really enjoy competing... Always have. I've tried many different sports though the years, like tennis, karate, kayaking, surfing and activities that maybe doesn't qualifies as actual "sports", but are more very active hobbies such as scuba diving and free diving, yoga and rock climbing...

For a long time I played soccer, and was a pretty decent goal keeper. This was between the ages of maybe 11 and 18, and after that I tried picking it up again at the ages 26 (in Gothenburg) and 28 (in Stavanger), but it was never as much fun. It's hard joining a team when you are older, especially if all the others have been a part of the team for a long time...

Therefore I'm even happier I dared to throw myself into something new again at the age of 31. Both Roller derby and Lindy hop presents me with new challenges, activates me without feeling like I'm exercising and I've gotten to know a bunch of great new people that I wouldn't have met otherwise. So, as a summary my New Year's resolution from last year to "try new things" turned out to be one of the best things I've done!

Sunday, 11 October 2015

This summer hasn't been the best garden summer. Mostly because of the weather, I guess. I never really got around to spend time out there expect for taking care of the most necessary of gardening, plus a couple of barbecue evenings. When the weather have been good on a non-working day, A and I have mostly used that time to paint the house. I'm not sure where we'll spend next summer, but I look forward to make this place look pretty again, it is such a cute little garden. Right now you have to look up close on the pretty things and ignore the mess, but there's s till a few gems out there, in spite of October.

Well, hello there!

This is a diary, of sorts, written by me, Annika, architect turned graphic design student. I spent my first 26 years in Sweden, the following 7 in Norway and now I live with my husband and two cats in Brunei, on the tropical island Borneo. Read my blog if you - like me - are fond of traveling, dressing up, reading fantasy, watching loads of Netflix, looking at cats, dancing Lindy hop and eating candy. Occasionally I get creative and, well, create stuff. When that happens I'll most likely blog about it. Welcome!